With Sanders Out, Pack Targets Smith
Green Bay coach Mike Holmgren approached defensive end Reggie White last week and told him that without injured Pro Bowl receiver Sterling Sharpe, the defense would have to carry the Packers in the playoffs.
“I told him if we wanted our season to continue, we’d have to step it up and stop Barry Sanders,” Holmgren said.
They did just that Saturday - and now they’ll have to do the same to Emmitt Smith on Sunday.
Sanders, fresh off the fourth-best rushing season in NFL history, carried 13 times for minus-1 yard as the Detroit Lions were beaten by the Packers 16-12 in an openinground NFC playoff game.
But safety LeRoy Butler said it won’t mean much unless Green Bay tops that with a second-round upset of two-time defending champion Dallas (12-4), which knocked the Packers out of the playoffs last year.
“If we hold Barry to minus-1 yard this weekend and then Emmitt Smith gets 200 next weekend, then we’re not a great defense anymore,” Butler said.
Smith rushed for 1,484 yards and 21 touchdowns, but pulled a hamstring in Dallas’ 15th game of the regular season. He picked up 133 yards and two touchdowns on 32 carries when Dallas beat the Packers 42-31 on Thanksgiving despite four TD catches by Sharpe.
The Packers are 4-1 since then.
“We are playing pretty well the last few weeks,” Packers defensive end Sean Jones said. “But I have to stress this means nothing if we go to Dallas and don’t pull it off.”
The Packers, after shutting down Sanders, have the confidence they can snap a three-game losing skid to the Cowboys even without Sharpe, whose season was ended by a neck injury that also threatens to cut short his spectacular career.
“As much as we miss Sterling,” quarterback Brett Favre said, “I think it was to our advantage to have our defense step up and take it upon themselves to not let that be a problem.”
Remembering the show
Don Shula was too busy coaching to be a fan. But even he could appreciate the show Joe Montana and Dan Marino put on in the first half of Saturday’s game.
“It was obvious both of them were at the top of their game,” the Dolphins coach said, a day after Miami and Marino beat Kansas City and Montana 27-17. “But it wasn’t until afterwards when I saw the stats that I realized how well they were throwing. And even then, there were a couple of drops.”
Indeed, it was a show - Montana and Marino together throwing only five incomplete passes in 31 attempts in a 17-17 first half. Montana was 12 of 15 and Marino 14 of 16 as each team scored on its first three possessions.
That changed as Miami’s Tim Bowens, J.B. Brown and Michael Stewart came up with big defensive plays and sent the Dolphins on to San Diego for a divisional playoff game with the Chargers, who won the AFC West with an 11-5 record.
Home-field advantage
There is a special incentive for the Dolphins, who took the East with a 10-6 mark as they try to get back to the Super Bowl for the first time in a decade.
This year, the NFL’s title game will be played at Joe Robbie Stadium and Shula would love to be the “home” team. Ten years ago, the last time Miami played in the game, they were the “visitors,” losing at Stanford Stadium to San Francisco 34-16 - in the last previous meeting between Marino and Montana.
Shula acknowledges the incentive is there - even through the standard goal of “playing them one at a time.”
“We set that as a goal at the beginning of the season and we’re obviously still alive,” he said. “Everyone is aware that the Super Bowl is out there. It would be just a tremendous accomplishment to get there.”
Carolina’s new coach?
Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dom Capers appears to be the top choice to become the first head coach of the Carolina Panthers. According to sources and an ESPN television report Saturday, Capers is the person the Panthers hope to hire, although contract negotiations are not yet under way and the team has been ordered to stop discussions with Capers by the NFL because of possible violations of the league’s anti-tampering policy.